"Moscow will be watching [Washington and Brussels] in Geneva to gauge their seriousness and solidarity. That does not mean the West needs to draw red lines in advance of the meeting. It does mean that if Russia does not pull its forces back from the border and stop inciting secessionists in southeastern Ukraine, the trans-Atlantic partners—and in particular the Europeans, who have considerably deeper economic ties with Russia than the United States—must reach a clear and binding consensus on the next level of sanctions," writes the New York Times in an editorial.

"Moscow's recent actions, from Crimea on, have released a historical paranoia in eastern Europe. Elsewhere, they have revived ideological clichés that date from the battle against Soviet communism, and helped fuel a still older fear that the west will for ever try to hold Russia down. Ukraine is a test. If it is allowed to break up—or made to do so—Russia and the west will spin into a confrontation from which both will emerge the losers. Both sides need to keep Ukraine whole. They cannot allow a clash of civilisations to become a self-realising fantasy," writes Dmitri Trenin in the Financial Times.

"The strategy needed to resist Putin's efforts to expand Russia's influence beyond its borders—and to induce change within them—resembles nothing so much as the 'containment' doctrine that guided Western policy for the four decades of the Cold War. Russia, a country of only 143 million people that lacks a modern economy, should be offered the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of international integration, but only if it acts with restraint. This is not to suggest the advent of Cold War II. But there is a strong case for adopting a policy that has proved its effectiveness in confronting a country with imperial pretensions abroad and feet of clay at home," writes CFR President Richard N. Haass for Project Syndicate.